… is from pages 220-221 of David Henderson’s excellent 2002 book, The Joy of Freedom:
Herbert Hoover, in the midst of the Great Depression, more than doubled the top [income-tax] rate to 63 percent and increased the bottom rate by more than nine times to 4 percent. He did this in spite of the fact that raising income tax rates during a depression lengthens the depression. Franklin Roosevelt carried on Hoover’s policy throughout the 1930s and increased tax rates further. By 1940, he had raised the top tax rate to 81.1 percent on incomes over $5 million.
Hoover also, by the way, presided over an increase in the federal rate of tax on net corporate income from 12.0 percent to 13.75 percent. No laissez-faire president he.
